How Many Genres..?!!

B

Baby Brown

New member
;) I think there are way too many subdivisions of electronic music out there. I believe it is unhealthy and distracts us from the music. It almost seems like eventually every artist/band will become their own sub-genre lol!

Am I wrong?
 
Don't forget that electronic music is a whole world.
I tend to think that the world of music is divided into 2 parts; instrumental, and electronic.
And since there are countless genres in the world of instrumental music, it's only fair that electronic can have plenty of genres as well.

Btw, how could lots of genres "distract us from the music" anyway?
 
I disagree.

Electronic Music isn't the only one to do this.

Rock music does this as well. They separate different styles into many sub-genres.

Nu Metal, Metal, Heavy Metal, Rock, Rock and Roll, Indie Rock, Grunge, Progressive Rock, Krautrock, Math Rock, Surf Rock, Skate rock, Death Metal, Black Metal, Goregrind, Grindgore, Pornogrind, Punk, Punk Rock, Post Punk, Indie Punk, Pop Punk, Pop Rock, Alternative Rock, (we could go on like this all day man)

Steffeeh has an interesting point imo.

I do agree that electronic music fans might take it a little too far. I think the main-main genres are Dubstep, House, Ambient, Chill-Out, Trance, DnB, Breakbeat, Industrial, Techno, and Chill-wave/Chill-step. Everything else are just the sub-genres.
 
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I tend to think of everything as either bassmusic, or not bassmusic, then some of it is minimal (repetetive and unstructured, rather than build-drop), some is not and some of it is commercial and some is underground.

So going through the permutations that makes 8 genres, but it's very subjective and all 3 things are really a scale. I guess if you were feeling really geeky about it you could make a 3-d graph and plot different artists on it.

That's just the way I do it though- and I only do it because all the genre inconsistencies annoy me a lot and only exist to confine music.
 
T-FUTURE said:
I do agree that electronic music fans might take it a little too far. I think the main-main genres are Dubstep, House, Ambient, Chill-Out, Trance, DnB, Breakbeat, Industrial, Techno, and Chill-wave/Chill-step. Everything else are just the sub-genres.
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If you do a little research, you'll find out that electronic music (as we know today) evolved mainly from Techno, House and Trance. Those are the "mother" styles of electronic music. Then, soon after that, came Jungle (which would become Dnb). The rest are sub-genres.
 
I like it because it groups similar sounds together so I can actually discover an artist with the sound I want. I don't want to look for Portishead and similar sounds and get Matrix Garrix or whatever his name is
 
Araphel said:
I like it because it groups similar sounds together so I can actually discover an artist with the sound I want. I don't want to look for Portishead and similar sounds and get Matrix Garrix or whatever his name is
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I feel the same way. Like for example Dillon Francis is called 'Moombahton' and 'Moombahcore' but if these two genres did not exist than Dillon Francis would just probably be considered 'Electro-House' because his music sounds a lot like a dubstep/house fusion.

I mean, Zedd, Avicii, Calvin Harris and all the DJ's like them (they are electro-house) sound completely different to Dillon Francis.

I think the only problem though is some people just take it too far. It's a new thing that I like to call the 'Genre Wars' where people have heated debates over what one song's genre might be.

Like someone might hear a drum and bass song and an argument breaks out. "It's not dnb, it's dubstep. Dubstep is slower and focuses more on the wub bass and kick and snare". "NO, it is neither. It is DRUMSTEP, which is dubstep and dnb fused together. Around 150BPM, combines the powerful dubstep sounds, but the style of dnb." "NO, NO, NO, this is a heavy brostep song!!" "No, this is a drumstep influenced brostep song". blahblahblahblahblah.

It's just this small number of people who make it hard to have a lot of genres.

You're right - lots of genres helps us categorize and find the kind of music we want easier and faster - it's just the arguments of which song goes where is what starts the Genre Wars.
 
T-FUTURE said:
I feel the same way. Like for example Dillon Francis is called 'Moombahton' and 'Moombahcore' but if these two genres did not exist than Dillon Francis would just probably be considered 'Electro-House' because his music sounds a lot like a dubstep/house fusion.

I mean, Zedd, Avicii, Calvin Harris and all the DJ's like them (they are electro-house) sound completely different to Dillon Francis.

I think the only problem though is some people just take it too far. It's a new thing that I like to call the 'Genre Wars' where people have heated debates over what one song's genre might be.

Like someone might hear a drum and bass song and an argument breaks out. "It's not dnb, it's dubstep. Dubstep is slower and focuses more on the wub bass and kick and snare". "NO, it is neither. It is DRUMSTEP, which is dubstep and dnb fused together. Around 150BPM, combines the powerful dubstep sounds, but the style of dnb." "NO, NO, NO, this is a heavy brostep song!!" "No, this is a drumstep influenced brostep song". blahblahblahblahblah.

It's just this small number of people who make it hard to have a lot of genres.

You're right - lots of genres helps us categorize and find the kind of music we want easier and faster - it's just the arguments of which song goes where is what starts the Genre Wars.
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I've never heard any genre wars, but I don't doubt the existence of it. I just think it is good to catergorize, but as with anything put in groups people always want their group to be special or better.
 
I think all of you would enjoy my podcast on this issue which can be found on soundcloud.com / marinasaints71

Anyway, from the way I see it, this is a result of the post-modern age's diffusion of content. I believe that the musical diversity we are creating is great, but since many times we tend to try and identify with certain styles/genres, we end up limiting ourselves. I.E - If you want to be an EDM producer, than you start looking at how EDM DJs act and you might mimic them, which ends up actually cutting off originality from your work.

From the way I see it, we should let go of the words and focus on expressing ourselves. That works for me and i believe it to be much less limiting, as creativity tens to flow better. Other people like the ideas of compartmentalizing specific sounds into categories. Whatever floats your boat! haha

saint-hills
 
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